When I lived in Japan for a year, I saw many marvellous things. A photo booth in Osaka that could merge two faces to show you what your offspring might look like.A vending machine selling hot coffee on the top of Mt Fuji. Shops that sold sock glue. Students that wore thick white ruched socks held halfway up their legs with sock glue.

Help me out here. How does an otherwise mostly intelligent woman end up watching a YouTube video in which a North American teen voice croons a folk tune about zombies eating his brain to a video background of Minecraft graphics? And this before breakfast.